“Tell me what you want,” he whispered against the side of her neck.
“The saying,” she gasped. “Tell me.”
“Oh, right.” He teased her by sliding one long finger over the silk panel between her legs, pressing the cool fabric against her wet, sensitized skin until she moaned.
“Cam, please.”
“That’s Mr. Nice Guy to you.”
“Yes, it is. You are. Now please, I don’t give a damn about the stupid saying.”
She felt him grin against the nape of her neck as he moved in closer, pressing himself between the cheeks of her buttocks, while his hand slid around the front of her body…and right back down between her legs.
“The saying goes like this,” he murmured, groaning a little as she ground her hips back against him. He slid one finger under the edge of elastic. “When they were good…they were very, very good.” He slid another finger under the edge, and moaned as he encountered her wetness. Slowly, he slid both fingers inside her. “And when they were bad,” he growled, sliding them out, then back in again, until she had to swallow the sounds of her first climax.
“They were perfect.” She gasped, shuddering as she came hard.
“Exactly,” Cam said, right before he slid his belt from his trousers. “Now, about this leather fantasy of yours…”
Please turn the page for an exciting preview of NEVER TOO MUCH by Lori Foster. Available now.
The damp, sultry night air felt thick with the threat of a violent storm. Not a single star glimmered through the ominous gray clouds gently crowding the dark sky. It was the type of night that stirred a man’s blood, made him think of warm mussed sheets and a warmer, mussed woman.
Ben Badwin needed a woman, and he needed her now. Tonight.
Breathing slow and deep, Ben let his mind wander to the carnal image of uncontrolled sex, of raging lust. His muscles tensed as he dredged up several female possibilities, but then he dismissed them all as not quite right. A muggy breeze ruffled his hair, drifted against his heated skin through the open collar of his shirt. Ben turned his face up to the night and smiled. He knew what he wanted.
A challenge.
Lately, the thrill of the chase, the chance to seduce, had been missing in his life. But he was a man, and damn it, he liked the chase. He liked testing himself and coming out the conqueror. He liked being a dominant male.
Tonight, the bar and grill attached to his motel was packed. For the most part the crowd remained friendly and free-spending, allowing Ben to take a moment to himself. He stood just outside the entry door and surveyed the parking lot. Flood lamps lit the area, showing a collection of shadowed cars and trucks. Business was good, booming even. On that level, at least, Ben was very satisfied.
On another, he burned with edginess.
A little ways down, in one of the ground floor rooms, a door opened. Two attractive, chatty women, probably in their early thirties, emerged. They laughed together as they moseyed toward the bar along the walkway. From all indications, they’d already been drinking. They neared Ben, and one with short, stylish blond hair winked and gave a three-finger wave.
Ben smiled back, polite as always, yet uninterested. “Ladies.”
A leggy brunette cocked out her shapely hip. “Helluva night to be hanging outside.” She eyed him up and down and up again with lascivious significance. A long scarlet fingernail touched his naked chest just inside his open shirt. “You should come on in and let me buy you a drink.”
Wishing he felt even a spark of interest, Ben raised his arms in mock regret. “An offer that sweet is hard to refuse, but refuse I must.”
She leaned forward, showing an impressive bosom to advantage. “I promise not to bite.”
Ben couldn’t help grinning. He adored women and their antics, the games they played and how they flirted. “Sweetheart, I don’t believe that for a second.”
The women laughed in delight. “You sure you don’t want to join us?”
The blonde added, “I promise it’ll be fun.”
“Can’t.” Ben shook his head, and lied. “My time is already taken.”
“Your loss.”
“I’m sure it is.”
They went inside and promptly found new game. Amused, Ben crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the clapboard wall. He enjoyed the business, he definitely enjoyed the female attention.
But these days he simply needed more, and he refused to settle for less.
A low rumble, probably thunder from the approaching storm, stirred the air. Ben looked to the sky for lightning, but saw none. The rumbling increased and seconds later the headlights of a truck came around the curve, briefly flashing into Ben’s face before swerving into the landscaping business directly across the street.
A few weeks ago Ben had noticed that the shop, after being abandoned for several months, was turning operational again. He’d seen workers putting the rundown business to rights with new paint, repaired shutters, a clean sweep of the cluttered gravel lot. Truckloads of mulch and plants and such had been delivered and arranged into neat rows.
Ben watched the old battered truck come to a jarring halt with grinding gears and a spattering of the loose rock and dirt. The headlights died, followed by a slamming door. He stared through the darkness, strangely alert.
Inside Ben’s bar, someone started the jukebox, and the rousing tune of “Bad to the Bone” emerged. The base was low and thrumming, reverberating in his chest, in his head.
That’s when Ben saw her.
She came out of the shadows and started across the street toward him. Spellbound, Ben watched as fog seemed to part around her, giving her an ethereal appearance. Somehow her steps, slow and rhythmic, matched the beat of the music, and the beat of his heart.
The reflection of a street lamp glinted off her reddish-brown hair. It was tied into a high ponytail that might have been neat at one point during the day but now straggled loose and sloppy around her face. A fringe of bangs, stringy with sweat, hung half in her eyes. She wore a dusty white sleeveless shirt under a pair of cover-all shorts with unraveled hems and a pair of brown work boots over rolled gray socks.
Ben wouldn’t call it feminine attire, but maybe fetish attire? Whatever. It sure got his attention.
Despite being midnight and hotter than Hades, her stride was long and sure and fluid, matching that provocative music. Bad to the Bone.
She had the walk of a satisfied woman, and it turned Ben on.
Because he stood in the shadows, she didn’t notice him until the last moment, when she was a mere three feet away. Their eyes met and she faltered. Her lips parted in surprise. Slowly, intently, she surveyed him.
Ben didn’t move, didn’t alter his relaxed pose against the building. But inside, interest roiled, kicked up his heartbeat, and sent his senses on full alert.
Knowing he looked too enthralled, Ben managed a nod—just barely.
The woman inched closer, but now her every step seemed weighted with caution and curiosity. When she was directly in front of Ben, her wide, lush mouth tilted and her eyes smiled. She shook her head, as if bemused.
Or disbelieving.
“You ought to be illegal.” Her laughing comment, low and throaty, broke the spell. “It’s a good thing I have a stout heart.”
With that strange remark, she strode on past and into the diner.
A little amazed at his aberrant reaction, Ben realized he hadn’t said a single word. He turned to view the back of her and his interest expanded. Her ass looked great in the coveralls, soft and cuddly and rounded just right. Her legs were strong, shapely, lightly tanned.
The rousing music faded away, but the scent of heated woman touched by the damp outdoors remained. Ben grinned.
Oh yeah, the chase was on.
And here is a seond preview that will whet your appetite for BEHIND CLOSED DOORS by Shannon McKenna.
Nine forty-six P.M. Almost time.
The monitor glowed with eerie blue light in the
darkened room, but the mosaic of windows on the screen remained stubbornly dark. Seth Mackey glanced at his watch and drummed his fingers against the desktop. Her schedule never varied. She should be home any minute.
There were more important things for him to be doing. He had hundreds of hours of tape to process, and even with Kearn’s new kick-ass rapid-filter software, it still took time to run the analyses. He should be studying the specs for the new generation of Colbit mikes, or at least conducting a random sweep of the other surveillance sites.
Still he stared at the monitor, trying to rationalize away the buzz of hot excitement in his body. The dozens of hours of vid that he had on file for her wouldn’t do the trick. He needed her live, in real time.
Like a junkie needed his fix.
He spat out a curse at the passing thought, negating it. He didn’t need anything, not anymore. Since Jesse’s death, he’d reinvented himself. He was as cool and detached as a cyborg. His heart rate did not vary, his palms did not sweat. His goal was sharp and clear. It shone in the still, cold darkness of his interior landscape, as brilliant as a guiding star. The plan to destroy Victor Lazar and Kurt Novak was the first thing that had aroused Seth’s interest in the ten months since they had murdered his little brother. It had rendered him a miracle of single-minded concentration—until three weeks ago.
The woman who was about to walk into the rooms monitored by the screen in front of him was the second thing.
The light-activated camera monitoring her garage flicked suddenly to life. He tried to ignore the way his heart rate spiked, and glanced at his watch. Nine fifty-one. She’d been at the office since 7:30 A.M.
Her car pulled in, the headlights switched off. She sat, slumped in the car for so long that the camera switched itself off and the window went dark. He cursed softly through his teeth and made a note to himself to reprogram the default from three minutes to ten.
The second two cameras activated themselves as she unlocked the front door and headed for the kitchen. She took a bottle of spring water from the refrigerator, tilted her head back, and drank. She took off her ugly horn-rimmed glasses and rubbed her eyes, clutching the edge of the kitchen sink for balance. The miniscule camera embedded in the macramé knots of the plant hanger framed her oval face, her stubborn jaw, the shadows under her large, heavily lashed eyes. She looked at the mascara smeared on her fingers and closed her eyes. The sweep of her lashes was dramatic, shadowy, and soft against the delicate curve of her high cheekbones. She looked exhausted.
Being Lazar’s new sex toy must be more strenuous than she had bargained for. He wondered how she’d gotten herself embroiled with him. Whether she was in too deep to ever get out. Most people who got involved with Lazar soon found they were in over their heads. By then, of course, it was too late.
There was no objective reason for him to continue to monitor her. According to the personnel file he’d hacked into, Lazar Shipping International had hired her a month ago as an executive assistant. Had it not been for the fact that she was living in Lazar’s ex-mistress’s house, she might never have come to his attention at all. Lazar’s visits to that house had warranted surveillance, and Seth had been watching it for months.
But Lazar didn’t visit the blonde, or at least he hadn’t yet. She came straight home from the office every night, stopping only to get groceries or to pick up her dry cleaning. The transmitter he had planted in her car confirmed that she never varied her route. A weekly phone call to her mother revealed only that the woman had no clue about her daughter’s latest career move, which was understandable; a young woman kept for pleasure by a ruthless criminal slimebag might well choose to hide the knowledge from her family. She knew no one in Seattle, went nowhere, had no social life that he could discern.
Kind of like himself.
The blonde stared almost directly into the camera with big, haunted eyes. She disquieted him. She looked…God, sweet was the word that came to mind, even though it made him wince.
He had never before had moral qualms about spying on people. When he was a kid reading comic books, he’d picked out his superhero mutation of choice right away. X-ray eyes won, hands down. It was the perfect mutation for a suspicious, paranoid control freak like himself. Knowledge was power, and power was good. He’d built an extremely lucrative career on that philosophy. Jesse used to tease him about it.
He shoved that thought away fast, before it could bite him.
He’d watched Montserrat, Lazar’s former mistress, with business-like detachment. Even seeing her writhing in bed with Lazar had left him cool and unmoved, even a little repulsed. Never once had he felt guilty. But Montserrat was a professional, a player who knew the rules. He read it in her sinuous, calculated body language. She wore a mask all the time: when she was fucking Lazar, even when she was alone.
The blonde had no mask at all. She was wide open and defenseless and soft, like whipped cream, like butter, like silk. It made him feel sleazy for watching her, an emotion so unfamiliar that it had taken him days to put a name to it. The hell of it was, the sleazier he felt, the more impossible it was to stop. He wished he could shake the nagging sense that she needed to be rescued. He wasn’t the white knight type to begin with, and besides, he had Jesse to avenge. That was enough responsibility.
He wished she weren’t so fucking beautiful. It was disturbing.
A shrink could probably explain his fixation; he was under stress, projecting his deprived childhood fantasies onto her because she looked like a fairy-tale princess. He’d read too many comic books as a kid. He was alienated, depressed, obsessed, had an altered perception of reality, blah, blah, blah. You name it, he was afflicted with it.
And the sight of that woman’s stunning body had altered reality beyond recognition. It had shocked his numbed libido violently into life.
She drifted wearily into the range of the micro-camera nestled inside the carved latticework of a hanging lamp in the bedroom. The lamp had been left behind by Montserrat, who had departed so abruptly that she hadn’t even taken the time to pack the personal items that she had contributed to the apartment’s décor.
The blonde had brought nothing of her own to the apartment, and had shown no interest in changing or moving the pieces that were already in place, which was good. The lamp commanded an excellent view of the mirror on the armoire, a detail for which he had reason to be grateful. She opened her armoire, and he enlarged the image until it filled the whole screen, pushing away the now-familiar pang of guilt. This was his favorite part.
She removed her tailored jacket and clipped the skirt to the hanger, which left her clad in a pale silk blouse. Not for the first time, he wished he’d installed one of the color cams, at least in the bedroom. He’d seen no point in it at the time, but with the black-and-whites he couldn’t tell if the blouse was white, ivory, yellow, pink, baby blue, or ice green. He wanted to differentiate between every tiny gradation of her perfect skin, from pale cream to pink to blush rose to deep crimson. He wanted it almost badly enough to break into the house again and upgrade. Almost.
She stretched up on tiptoe to hang up the suit, and the tail of her blouse hiked up to reveal prim cotton briefs that stretched tightly across the swell of her rounded ass. He knew her evening routine as well as if it were the opening credits of an old television show, but still he hung on every detail. Her artless, unself-conscious movements fascinated him. Most of the good-looking women he knew played constantly to an imaginary camera; checking every reflective surface they passed to make sure they were still beautiful. This dreamy-eyed girl didn’t seem to particularly notice, or care.
She peeled off her hose, flung them into the corner, and slowly commenced her clumsy, innocent nightly striptease. She fumbled with her cuffs until he wanted to scream at her to get the fuck on with it. Then she fussed and picked at the buttons at the throat of the high-necked blouse, gazing into the mirror as if she saw another world entirely.
His breath hissed sharply in between his teeth whe
n she finally shrugged off the blouse. Her full, plump breasts were sternly restrained by a plain white under-wire bra. It was not a sexy, rich man’s plaything scrap of lingerie. It was full-coverage, wide straps, practical and unadorned—and the faint hint of cleavage it revealed was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
He rearranged his throbbing private parts inside his jeans and dragged his hand over his hot face with a groan. He had no business getting anything more than a purely casual, incidental hard-on for one of Lazar’s toys. It was deadly stupid, and it had to stop.
Except that now it was time for the hair. God, he loved that part.
She tossed pin after pin into the china tray on the dresser, and uncoiled the thick blond braid from the bun at the nape of her neck. She unraveled the strands, shaking them loose until they rippled past the small of her back, tapering down to gleaming wisps that brushed tenderly against the swell of her ass.
His breath sighed out in a low, audible groan as she reached behind herself and unhooked the bra. His hands tingled as he stared at her plump, luscious breasts, crowned with pale pink nipples. He imagined them taut, flushed, and hard against his fingers, the palms of his hands, his feverish face, his hungry, suckling mouth. His heart began to pound.
She peeled off the panties, and stretched her beautiful body. Rolling her shoulders, her neck, arching her back until her breasts thrust out, enjoying the sensual freedom of being naked and alone. Unmasked and defenseless. Whipped cream and butter and silk.
The nest of springy, dark blond curls at her crotch didn’t quite hide the shadowy cleft between her shapely thighs. He wanted to press his face against those soft ringlets, inhale her warm woman scent, and then taste her, parting the moist, tender pink folds of her cunt, licking and suckling her until she collapsed in pleasure. Video was not enough. He needed more data. Colors, smells, tastes. He was starving for it.
I Love Bad Boys Page 26